Evaluación de huella de carbono en la producción pecuaria de una granja a pequeña escala, ubicada en la comunidad de Soldados del cantón Cuenca

Abstract

The agricultural sector is considered of economic importance for our country. However, it is responsible for generating greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, mainly methane and nitrogen oxides which cause climate change. The main objective of this study was to evaluate the carbon footprint (CF) in a small-scale livestock farm, located in the community of Soldados of the parish of San Joaquín. To this end, an inventory of GHG emission sources identified within the farm was prepared; the organizational, operational limits were determined, the base year, in this case the evaluation was carried out for the year 2017, and finally the mathematical calculations for the GHG quantification were carried out. The methodology and guidelines established by the IPCC, GHG Protocol and ISO 14064 were applied. In addition, interviews were conducted with 16 children from four educational units in Cuenca, two public and two private, which were part of the research project of the University of Osnabrück (Germany), turning the present study into a trial that fine-tunes the methodology in our context. The interviews focused on the perceptions in regards to the activities that are carried out in the farms, and how they influence the environmental contamination. MAXQDA software was used to analyze the interviews. As a result of the CF calculation, a total of 71.12 t〖 CO〗_2eq, was obtained from nine emission sources identified, with methane being the main GHG generated. From the results obtained from the interviews, the total of the sample attributes that the contamination within a farm is given by the excreta of the cattle.